By Joe Elmore, special to Statehouse Report | Despite Charleston County becoming the Southeast’s first No Kill Community in 2013, tens of thousands of animals in other areas of South Carolina are dying needlessly due to a lack of best practices and resources.

To combat these alarming statistics, Charleston Animal Society, South Carolina’s first animal protection organization and one of the oldest (143 years) in the nation, launched No Kill South Carolina (NKSC) in 2015. Funded by a generous grant from Petco Foundation, No Kill South Carolina hit the ground a year later and is arguably the boldest grassroots animal care initiative ever undertaken in the U.S.